Jason V.'s Game Den - All Things Gaming

I used to write quite a bit about gaming, then stuff happened and I was more or less buried alive. Now that I've unearthed myself and things aren't as perplexing, I'm back to the grind.
All things gaming here - reviews, random pictures, rants, streaming (again....eventually), predictions, what have you. Like what you see? I'm always looking for new opportunities - email me at galarianvaloran@gmail.com and lets chat!

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

I will not cover nor follow anything that caters to a dwindling number of companies and websites covering it, many of whom do no belong there based on profession. It was never completely exclusive to whom they invited to cover the event, but the growing metrics required to get badges has become asinine. I understand the bigger sites bring in bigger hits with more eyes poking towards what is covered, but smaller sites have flourished during E3 coverage as well. Coverage is coverage.

So until organizers decide to stop limiting who attends and covers to the "elite" journalists, random Hollywood mouth breathers with no just cause there, parody YouTube players that do not actually critique the material and so on, I will not bother covering, nor caring, about E3. Instead, I'll be watching Toy Story 1-3, checking for Steam sales and trying to beat the Kyle Bayle raid. Possibly in that order, or at the same time.

Sunday, May 18, 2014

For the majority of the last year, I haven't had any real chance to produce any original written content. There were a number of factors to this, from personal torments to my passion to do so all but fizzling out, which had its own myriad of reasoning's. For just about all of my time away from "the scene", I've pretty much kept to myself; I more or less alienated myself from anyone and even anything, while I tried to brace the storm and get things situated. My rabid obsession with Grand Theft Auto V had soon evaporated; I just booted it up for the first time since I believe late 2013. I paid attention to gaming news and such, but there was a predominance of tending to my own ordeals (so I never really went over how displeased I have been with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One thus but, but I digress).

There was one constant, however, that helped some time go by when there were periods of inactivity, as well as work as a form of escapism (probably not something one would wanna have during the times I soldiered through). The irony of this one constant was the fact that it was, in of its self, a re-ignition of something I hadn't really put much time in over the last couple of years:

My seemingly on again/off again infatuation with Sony Online Entertainment's grandaddy to the MMORPG genre came back on, and has stayed on. When I came back to the game, most anyone I used to play with had long parted, though two friends from many years back had made the trek back over and started to gear up and clear some content that was new to us. Unfortunately I was the last man standing, as they both left, but nevertheless found myself doing quests and leveling up alts with an individual I became friends with through a mutual friend I've known for ages, who had returned a bit earlier than I did. Now I'm back in the position of clearing high end raid content a couple times a week and very much enjoying it all once again.

Through my re-ignition of an old love and passion I seemingly came around and was able to not only settle many of the problems I had encountered through the last year, but I started to regain that love and passion for what I've been doing for years - talking about gaming. Taking the down time to get lost once again in such a massive game world gave me even more time to get myself sorted and realign a lot of things. At one point I even had the urge to chronicle my raiding adventures, and how they differentiate from years gone by, though those desires seemed to have dissipated and in its stead was that spark I needed to seek out what I've enjoyed as things around me stabilized. I could still conceivably do weekly reports on the group, raid and other portions of the game anyway, but I don't want to hold myself down to a singular entry.

It's quite shocking how an innocent hobby such as gaming, could be both a blessing and a curse. The blessing for me was having good company and enjoying whatever activities we engaged in during the times where things were rough and I wanted to fill the dead time with something I'd enjoy. The curse being that for some folk, a genre such as the MMORPG could be a timesink that can swallow them whole. Falling into the former, I can say that this old friend called Everquest managed to once again be part of something that re-ignited more than one thing that nearly dissipated into nothingness.

It really is something to sit here and realize that's as seemingly "innocent" as a video game, as well as good company throughout the time spent playing it, can be that one piece of a puzzle that manages to start making the big picture look a bit more clear. It's another reason why I have this passion burning for it all; gaming has so much of a meaning to so many different people, spanning through a plethora of genres and a myriad of consoles. It went from some geeky niche to a full fledged hobby that's enjoyed in countless ways. It went from being viewed as "children's entertainment" to the spectacle of eSports, where these "children's games" are now played in tournaments and big money matches around the world. Lets just hope these "all-in-one" boxes retain the focus of being a gaming unit more so than the 74th electronic household item that plays Hulu, Netflix and other non gaming related applications.

About Me

Crawling from the grave of which I've been in for close to a year, I'm back to what I enjoy doing most - talking about video games as a whole. Expect to see a variety of things in relation to gaming (reviews, pictures, rants, videos, etc.) with the occasional off topic inserts here and there. Check out my previous work: http://clgamer.com/tag/jason-v/ || http://www.1up.com/do/my1Up?publicUserId=6176116 || http://people.ign.com/jasonvelez